Mariner Matters | 3.25

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Spring stats don't mean squat according to Junior....

"One day, I watched Aaron Harang get his ass handed to him. But I also watched what he was doing. He threw a fastball up and away, curve up and away, slider. He threw all his pitches up and away. Then he went to the inside part of the plate, then he went down. He worked the corners. He didn't care about his ERA and what they were doing. That wasn't what he was worried about. We may have felt like that, because we were chasing the balls they were blasting.

"I asked him, 'What were you thinking, what was going on?' He said, 'I was just working spots.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'Think about what I did to such and such.' Then I started going through all the batters and what he was doing, and I said, 'Never mind,' and walked away."

The upshot is that Harang went on that year to 16-11 and lead the National League in strikeouts (216) and complete games (six). That leads into Professor Griffey's main point about spring stats being particularly unrevealing -- not exactly groundbreaking, but meaningful coming from someone who has been in 20-plus spring trainings. Jamie Moyer was another one who would use early spring games to work on certain pitches, often getting blasted in the process. But by the end of camp, he would be sharp and ready to go.

More from Griffey on the topic, speaking about eight days ago:

"At some point in spring, you just don't play well, and then you get that second wind. At some point, everybody is going to play bad. Then all of a sudden, it's close to the end of spring training, and you say, 'All right, let's go.' "

With Jackie Z, it appears, character is job 1 and Mike Sweeney agrees...

"The main thing is accountability," Sweeney said. "You hold guys accountable. If guys are not adhering to the rules or guidelines of this clubhouse, you point it out. It's simple. There are no official rules, but if you're doing things that are detrimental to the team, then you're going to get called out on it, whether you're a 10-year veteran or a rookie.

"It's called accountability," he added. "If you don't have that, then you're not going to have, No. 1, a team. You're not going to have unity. The days of, if you blow a game, hiding in the trainer's room, those are over. It's being held accountable."

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"I saw it playing against these guys last year," Sweeney said. "I thought, "they don't seem like a team'. It didn't seem like they had any unity or togetherness. I could see that just from seeing guys communicate on the field, guys not picking each other up. I could sense that from the other dugout."